School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Cantell School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 93 families who named Cantell School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 239 and 318 put it first.

Below: what an appeal in Southampton actually involves, and how contested this school has been over 12 years of official figures.

1.33

first choices for every place available

318 first preferences for 239 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Cantell School

There is no published appeal success rate for Cantell School, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Southampton as a whole and cover every state-funded school in the authority. Anyone quoting you odds for a named school is making them up.

Across Southampton, 27.7% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 69 of 249 appeals heard in 2024–2026. The England figure is 20.1%.

A panel is not deciding whether you want the school. It decides whether the admission arrangements were lawful and correctly applied, and then whether the harm to your child of not being admitted outweighs the harm to the school of going over its published number. Cases built on preference rather than on those two questions are the ones that fail.

See the full appeal figures for Southampton.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Southampton ones. Whichever school you are appealing for, the panel works through the same two stages and is required to ignore the same things.

How contested this school has been

Cantell School turned first-choice families away in 8 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 6 of those years. In the other 2 it had places on paper and still turned first-choice families away — which happens where families who may not meet a school's criteria rank it below a safer choice — common at selective, faith and single-sex schools, and it means the first-preference count understates how wanted the school is.

First preferences per place at Cantell School, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 0.61 per place 106 first choices 174 places 2016/17 0.7 per place 156 first choices 224 places 2017/18 0.7 per place 135 first choices 194 places 2018/19 0.64 per place 144 first choices 225 places 2019/20 0.86 per place 204 first choices 238 places 2020/21 1.05 per place 256 first choices 244 places 2021/22 0.99 per place 238 first choices 241 places 2022/23 1.05 per place 256 first choices 243 places 2023/24 1.05 per place 258 first choices 246 places 2024/25 1.16 per place 284 first choices 245 places 2025/26 1.35 per place 325 first choices 241 places 2026/27 1.33 per place 318 first choices 239 places
First preferences per place at Cantell School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 318 first preferences for 239 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Cantell School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 174 106 106 0.61
2016/17 224 156 156 0.7
2017/18 194 135 135 0.7
2018/19 225 144 144 0.64
2019/20 238 204 182 0.86
2020/21 244 256 197 1.05
2021/22 241 238 187 0.99
2022/23 243 256 212 1.05
2023/24 246 258 213 1.05
2024/25 245 284 226 1.16
2025/26 241 325 226 1.35
2026/27 239 318 225 1.33

Places offered

239

in 2026/27

Named first choice

318

682 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

70.8%

225 of 318

Offers to families outside the council

2%

4 of 239 offers

Was the school full?

This is the question a panel spends most of its time on. At the second stage of an appeal it weighs the harm to the school of taking an extra child against the harm to your child of being refused — and how much room the school has is the heart of that. The admission authority has to show harm over and above the fact that its published number has been reached, so it is fair to ask what the specific harm is — how the second stage actually works.

Places, Years 7 to 11

1,188

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,280

107.7% of capacity

Over its capacity by

92

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

0

excluded from the figures above

Read this before you use these numbers

These are whole-school figures across Years 7 to 11, not the year group you are appealing for. A school can hold spare places in its upper years while the year you want is genuinely full, and the panel will have the year-group numbers in front of it. So this does not show that Cantell School has room for your child.

They are also the school's own reported capacity, as at 1 May 2025 — a year behind the application figures further up this page, and a description rather than a finding.

On the published figures Cantell School was at or beyond its stated capacity across Years 7 to 11. A school in that position has a straightforward case that another admission would cause it difficulty, and an appeal here has to succeed on the strength of your child's own circumstances rather than on spare room.

Places and pupils on roll, whole school, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Cantell School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 750 1,500 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,404 places 975 on roll 2010/11 1,404 places 947 on roll 2011/12 1,404 places 943 on roll 2012/13 1,477 places 862 on roll 2013/14 1,390 places 849 on roll 2014/15 1,390 places 858 on roll 2015/16 1,390 places 893 on roll 2016/17 1,390 places 930 on roll 2017/18 1,188 places 967 on roll 2018/19 1,188 places 1,060 on roll 2020/21 1,188 places 1,170 on roll 2021/22 1,188 places 1,209 on roll 2022/23 1,188 places 1,248 on roll 2023/24 1,188 places 1,269 on roll 2024/25 1,188 places 1,280 on roll
Whole-school figures including any sixth form, as at 1 May each year. 2019/20 is missing because the 2020 School Capacity survey was cancelled.

Department for Education, School capacity, school-level file, 2024/25. Published under the Open Government Licence.

What these figures do not tell you

About the school

Type
Foundation school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Southampton

Postcode SO16 3GJ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 116469).

Other contested secondary schools in Southampton

Applications and offers: Department for Education, Primary and secondary school applications and offers, school-level file, 2026/27. Appeal figures: Admission appeals in England. Both under the Open Government Licence.